A great book on the development of Ryanair from a tiny Irish airline to one of the largest airlines in Europe. It provides great insight into all the events that set Ryanair going, including an excellent look at the personalities behind the scenes including Tony Ryan, Ryanair’s founder, and Michael o’Leary its chief executive.

It’s also an excellent illustration of the ingredients that make low-fare airlines work. The choice of airports to fly to is one of the fundamental issues. Ryanair goes for airports that are outside major cities, such as Stansted outside London and Hahn outside Frankfurt. It markets these as flights to London and to Frankfurt, whereas they are usually not within what people consider to be “London” and “Frankfurt” – Hahn is two hours from Frankfurt. One contest held by the Guardian asked readers to guess which of Ryanair’s airports was furthest from the advertised location. The winner was Reims (advertised as “Disneyland”) which is hundreds of miles from EuroDisney.

These airports, being out of the way, are less trafficked and therefore were more than willing to give Ryanair good deals on landing fees in exchange for the increase in traffic. It also meant that Ryanair could do 25-minute turnarounds of the airplanes, which maximised the flight time of their aircraft. Unlike conventional airlines, which tend to use their aircraft to fly to a hub and then on to a secondary destination, Ryanair flies its planes back and forth between two points multiple times a day, banking on a quick turnaround to squeeze in many more flights than its competitors. It also means that Ryanair has no need to wait for passengers who are connecting from some other destination. If you’re late for a Ryanair flight, then you’re not on it. If your baggage doesn’t get on, too bad.

Ryanair cuts costs in every way possible. Its flight attendants, pilots and other staff tend to be paid less than the competition. Ryanair is strongly anti-union and their HR policies have led to some major bust-ups, including one that shut down the Dublin airport for a couple of days. Ryanair doesn’t issue seats to passengers, saying that the added administrative hassles would add to costs. There are no free drinks on board the plane, and it takes planes that have no window shades and no seat pockets to minimise cleaning. It’s also unapologetic if flights are delayed or even cancelled, saying that if passengers made only a few pounds for the flight, they shouldn’t expect to be given a thirty pound hotel room overnight. This can make flying with Ryanair a very stressful experience, as many passengers have found out to their cost.

Another measure Ryanair has taken is to bypass the traditional airline ticketing methods that other conventional airlines, dependent on business traffic, are hooked on. The conventional booking methods require a commission, but booking online and through Ryanair’s own telephone tacility does not.

Ryanair also makes some very hardnosed deals. After September 2001, when other airlines severely cut down on the number of aircraft they had ordered from Boeing et al, Ryanair bought instead, getting itself a very attractive deal on the aircraft. The philosophy is to buy when everyone else is selling and to sell when everyone else is buying.

The book is basically a business book that tells a good story. It is also quite funny in places. I liked this particular excerpt:

“Ryanair staff remember these colourful and popular colleagues [pilots leased from the Romanian state airline Tarom] warmly, and enjoy recounting stories about them. They were very experienced pilots and generally had many more flying hours than the airline’s other pilots, but their English tended to be patchy and sometimes their friendly greetings from the cockpit unintentionally unsettled passengers. ‘They used to frighten the life out of the passengers by saying things like, “Today, we go at Luton!” sounding like they were on a bombing mission,’ one Ryanair member of staff laughed. When one flight encountered some technical difficulty forcing the pilot to suddenly abort a landing he attempted to reassure those on board by offering a helpful explanation for the aircraft’s sudden ascent: ‘The red light she go out. We try again.’ Unsurprisingly, the Romanians’ flight announcement duties were soon cancelled.” (p. 54)

Overall, I highly recommend this book as an introduction to the abrupt changes that have occurred in the no-frills airline industry in the past few years, which are changing the travelling habits of people all across the world.